John Ploetz

26 Aug, 2013

John Ploetz Bloggin

Some people do well just selling basketballs to basketball players. But if you’re selling basketballs why wouldn’t you try to sell them to everyone. Sales people sometimes limit their potential customer pool when they fail to find common ground with a more diverse customer base. When you’re selling to only basketball players you may have the luxury of using sports stories as a way to connect. But, if you use those same stories with a broader customer base you won’t move past the initial small talk. Broadening your prospective customer pool is all about finding common ground with a wider sales segment. Broaden your sales customer pool and sales skills by:

1. Selling on your customers’ terms. Move outside your comfort zone and look for topics of discussion that you know will interest a prospective customer.

a. Do some background research before making a sales call to better understand your prospective customer.

b. Ask a few questions before you start your sales pitch to figure out what is of interest to a potential customer.

2. Treating everyone as a potential customer. Consider it a personal challenge to find out what interests people. A simple open ended question like “How’s your week going?” gives any person the opportunity to discuss their own thoughts.

3. Keeping conversation fresh. The conversation is never about you it’s about getting your customer to relate to you. Nothing chills a sales call more than a repeat of an old story. Instead:

a. Sincerely listen to your customer.

b. Talk about an interesting current event or news story, if needed.

4. Never discussing controversial topics like politics.

5. Using 30 percent of your time to gather new leads and cultivate new prospects

6. Using 70 percent of your time to work on selling to and managing existing customers.

Now with the internet it’s easy to get quick background info and news. So now more than ever you can discuss what your customer wants to discuss not what you want to talk about. Remember, sales isn’t just about selling it’s about developing relationships to meet your long term and short term sales goals.

Next: Team building

John Ploetz

18 Aug, 2013

John Ploetz Bloggin

SEM is defined differently by different people. For many the term SEM refers to the broader steps a company takes to improve traffic to its website and aid in improving website marketing through paid and unpaid initiatives. In fact LinkedIn takes that broader position, defining SEM as both paid and unpaid actions taken to optimize a website to improve search results. If you have a LinkedIn account, you can review the LinkedIn definition at http://www.linkedin.com/skills/skill/SEM.

Other companies use the term “search marketing” to define the broader definition which incorporates both SEO and SEM; these companies define SEM or search engine marketing as simply the paid search activities used to optimize a company’s marketing. See Search Engine Land’s definition at http://searchengineland.com/guide/what-is-paid-search.

I tend to embrace the broader definition of SEM which includes SEO activities that we discussed in last week’s blog post (http://jploetz.wordpress.com/2013/08/08/seo-search-engine-optimization/) and broader paid and unpaid website based marketing activities aimed at getting your website on the top of search engine lists to optimize your search marketing.

The important question is how do you decide how to manage this process? You need to look at how to proceed in setting up an SEM plan for your company. Go to http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshsteimle/2013/08/16/online-marketing-when-to-outsource-when-to-do-it-in-house/ for a discussion on how to decide whether to handle optimization in house or get outside assistance. Also, a good website to start with to give you overall info on SEO and SEM information, news and training is http://searchenginewatch.com/

In general, a few things to think about when setting up an SEM plan are:

1. Look closely at the cost/reward for any paid activities you plan to take.

a. Weigh the costs of hiring a full time person to handle these tasks or hiring a consultant.

b. Make sure to tie overall budget costs to a specific set of goals- sales or website access numbers.

2. Make sure you are tracking your results; quantify how your SEM activities are making your marketing more successful.

3. Have a set budget worked out on a monthly and annual basis with goals tied to those budget numbers.

4. If you are not attaining set goals be prepared to reassess and make changes on a monthly or quarterly basis.

Search engine marketing is an inexact science and the rules and ways to be successful are constantly changing. Make sure you are on top of the technology changes and the trend changes, so that you can optimize your resources to get the best bang for your buck. This is an area of your business that you need to be continually reviewing and fine tuning. If you are not getting results over a few month time period be prepared to make changes in your plan.

Next up – Is sales just selling?

John Ploetz

8 Aug, 2013

John Ploetz Bloggin

Everyone keeps saying “Just when I figured out how to work the SEO system, the big search engine companies like Google, Microsoft (Bing), and Yahoo change the rules.” But, in reality search engine companies are only adjusting their rules to continually even the playing field. As people start learning how to take shortcuts to improve their rankings, search engine companies make changes to maintain value in the search engine process. Their goal is to make web searches as valuable a tool to the general public as possible. What does this mean to you? Two things come to mind.

1. There continue to be basic rules for you to follow to improve your SEO; and

2. You need to be continually aware of changes search engine companies make to their SEO guidelines.

First off, basic rules to follow include:

1. Content is always important.

a. Information you are providing should be current and well written.

b. Choose words wisely in your web content. Know what are the key industry words and make sure to use those in your website.

c. Know what words potential customers search in order to look up your products or services. These words should be used in your website as well.

2. Build links into your website if possible.

a. Only link to trusted websites that are known in your field.

b. Look at reciprocally linking with other companies in your industry that don’t directly compete with you. Maybe you provide books on a specific area and another company provides training. See if they will allow you to set up cross links on each company website.

3. Review how your website is laid out for access and ease of use.

a. Decide which landing pages you want to use or which home page you want to use.

b. Make sure your website flows properly from one area to another, allowing visitors to move easily to content.

A good resource to make sure you cover all the important areas is Search Engine Land’s periodic table on creating SEO. Go to http://searchengineland.com/seotable to access the table.

Also, two good recent articles http://searchengineland.com/searchmetrics-releases-their-seo-ranking-factors-post-penguin-2-0-164902?goback=.gde_4404408_member_255746400 and http://marketingland.com/slideshow-the-periodic-table-of-seo-success-factors-explained-54349?utm_source=ml&utm_medium=mcap&utm_campaign=email&mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRonuq7JZKXonjHpfsX57uUpX6S2lMI%2F0ER3fOvrPUfGjI4CTsRiI%2BSLDwEYGJlv6SgFTbLCMbpx37gNXxU%3D give a good overview of the changing importance different factors play in SEO.

Finally, the different search engine companies have put out recent revised guidelines on the “dos” and “don’ts” on SEO. They go over their in depth best practice standards as follows:

1. View the guidelines put out by Google – https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769#2

2. View the guidelines put out by Bing – http://www.bing.com/webmaster/help/webmaster-guidelines-30fba23a

3. View the guidelines put out by Yahoo – http://help.yahoo.com/kb/index?page=content&y=PROD_SRCH&locale=en_US&id=SLN2245&impressions=true

In the end it is all about not taking shortcuts and designing, and updating your website to make it as user friendly as possible. If you have decent content, a decent structure and keep your information and technology current. You will continue to move in the right direction. Don’t expect things to happen overnight.

Next up – What is SEM and how does it differ from SEO.